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Old English did possess a voiced velar fricative sound [ɣ], which developed from Proto-Germanic *ɡ, but [ɣ] is usually analyzed as a separate phoneme from /x/: the sounds were normally distinguished in spelling, with [ɣ] written as g and /x/ as h , although some unetymological interchange of these spellings occurs, especially in word-final ...
The phonological system of the Old English language underwent many changes during the period of its existence. These included a number of vowel shifts, and the palatalisation of velar consonants in many positions. For historical developments prior to the Old English period, see Proto-Germanic language.
This was later extended in Pre-Old English times to vowels before all nasals; hence Old English niman "take" but Old High German neman. Loss of /n/ before /x/, with nasalization and compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. The nasalization was eventually lost, but remained through the Ingvaeonic period.
The loss of postvocalic /r/ in the British prestige standard in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries influenced the American port cities with close connections to Britain, which caused upper-class pronunciation to become non-rhotic in many Eastern and Southern port cities such as New York City, Boston, Alexandria, Charleston, and Savannah. [9]
This is the original source of the English sounds written f, th, h and wh. Examples, comparing English with Latin, where the sounds largely remain unshifted: For PIE p: piscis vs. fish; pēs, pēdis vs. foot; pluvium "rain" vs. flow; pater vs. father For PIE t: trēs vs. three; māter vs. mother For PIE d: decem vs. ten; pēdis vs. foot; quid ...
Spanish syllable structure is phrasal, resulting in syllables consisting of phonemes from neighboring words in combination, sometimes even resulting in elision. The phenomenon is known in Spanish as enlace. [110] For a brief discussion contrasting Spanish and English syllable structure, see Whitley (2002:32–35).
Most native English speakers today find Old English unintelligible, even though about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. [12] The grammar of Old English was much more inflected than modern English, combined with freer word order , and was grammatically quite similar in some respects to modern German .
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the British English accent regarded as the standard one, carrying the highest social prestige, since as late as the very early 20th century. [1] [2] Language scholars have long disagreed on RP's exact definition, how geographically neutral it is, how many speakers there are, the nature and classification of its sub-varieties, how appropriate a choice it is as a ...